


Touched By Death

by BirdMonster



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Character Study, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:22:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27481159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BirdMonster/pseuds/BirdMonster
Summary: Ashe would cry in agony when he thought of the beauty that was his lover’s eyes— not because the other brought him the pain, but because he knew he didn’t deserve to gaze upon something so sublime.--the effects of guilt
Relationships: Cyril/Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert
Comments: 8
Kudos: 14





	Touched By Death

Cyril was gorgeous. Ashe always thought so, but such musings occupied his mind more than most things during the quiet moments of war. The days where he whiled away idle hours flipping through novel after novel, all but praying the words would take him to a world other than his own. Though more often than not, he found himself distracted from his distractions, thinking about the way Cyril’s curls flowed around his neck or the dazzling flecks of night in his sunset amber eyes.

He loved Cyril. In a time where everything was so uncertain, he could be sure of that. Fear was a constant thing that gripped at his ribs and clawed at his heart. Plagued his dreams and stopped short his breath when he was awake— when a sound was a bit too loud or his mind wandered a bit too long. But the gentle touch of Cyril was enough to cast it all away if only for a moment. When the other would intertwine their fingers and brush his lips against Ashe’s neck. Ashe’s chest would light up in an expanse of warmth among bones that often felt so cold. He would want nothing more than to pull his lover close and kiss him until all the fighting passed. And then he would kiss him more, ignore the pressing responsibilities of the future and forget the terror of the past until all he knew was the way the man he cherished felt pressed against him.

What stopped him from doing just that wasn’t Cyril’s lack of free time. Hardly so— no matter how many tasks occupied the other’s time, he always found moments for Ashe. To nag him, in all his hypocrisy, about eating and getting enough rest. To brush his thumb along Ashe’s jaw and whisper in a fervent tone that he loved him.

No, he couldn’t blame his reclusiveness on Cyril’s absence. He could only blame it on the guilt.

If one asked any other inhabitant of Garreg Mach if Ashe’s presence was scarce, they wouldn’t think it to be the case. It was all because Ashe was skilled in appearing at the right time— when someone required assistance or would appreciate an extra set of hands. If you made yourself present in the times you were needed, no one would notice when you weren’t there. When days passed without a step outside your room— when the count of glasses in the monastery kitchen seemed somehow lower because you couldn’t bring yourself to take a cup of stale water back to where it came.

There were times when Ashe would wake up and his room would be cleaner than he left it. No stray dishes in sight— aside from the freshly made cup of tea left on his desk— and a floor void of carelessly strewn laundry.

The guilt would grow those mornings. There was, after all, only one other person with a key to his room.

The feeling was like a creeping spectre— always out of sight and ever growing closer. It would tug at his heart at the worst of times. When he dipped to give his love a kiss in the dining hall or held his hand as they sat amongst the flowers in the garden. Every part of him would scream to deepen their intimacy. And he would indulge, most times, because his plague was far from the embarrassment that made Cyril grumble when others happened to witness their loving embrace. Ashe could show his affection without hesitation or restraint. It wouldn’t be until the chill of night where the spectre would catch up with him, where it made him want to recede into the darkness. When Cyril laid asleep beside him, or worse, spent the late hours locked away in the council room. The gears in Ashe’s mind would stutter, creak, and turn. Make such a racket there was no escape from all the noise.

At least when Cyril was there, Ashe could watch the rise and fall of his chest and have incentive to keep it together, to ensure his love would awake to a quiet morning and not an alarming array of late night sobs. Cyril deserved better than that.

He deserved better than Ashe.

Ashe knew this. And on his lonely nights he would express the misery it made him feel. He would cry in agony when he thought of the beauty that was his lover’s eyes— not because the other brought him the pain, but because he knew he didn’t deserve to gaze upon something so sublime. A person such as himself— someone who had done terrible things and grown only worse with every passing day. Who graduated from thievery to drawing the blood of those who loved him.

When he stared at his hands, gaze vacant and hazey, all he could see was red. And how dare he stain the skin of another with that hue? How dare he spend selfish hours trailing his tainted fingertips along the outline of Cyril’s body— of someone who had been through so much more than he. But when sanctity stood before him in the form of comforting warmth and gentle words, he couldn’t help himself. He was too desperate to love. And Cyril, though ever-deserving of so much more, was just as desperate to be loved.

Ashe hated himself for it. A hatred deeper than the complexity he felt towards the Church, towards Lonato, towards the universe that took everything from him all at once and then took it all again. It burned him like the heat of Aillel. Clouded the air drawn into his lungs with smoke, turned the water he drank into searing magma. He could feel it coat his throat and burn in the pit of his stomach. An unparalleled loathing of his own mind that reached back far before Cyril yet manifested in his want for the other all the same.

He loved before in many different ways. His parents— the restaurant they ran and his future working beside them, providing for his own class and the less fortunate. It was more than a place for people to gather, it was a staple of community. A place where one felt as though they were part of something. A place of love. And he loved it.

But he couldn’t save it. He couldn’t save his parents— couldn’t even say goodbye as their bodies were taken to prevent the spread of illness. The place he called home was snapped up by someone with more money in their pockets than he had seen in a lifetime. It was gone.

He loved Lonato. And Christophe, too. A family he was fortunate to find. It felt too good to be true— he thought, somehow, that he had taken his parents too much for granted. There were days where he didn’t want to work. Where he wanted to play outside with his siblings instead. Maybe the goddess punished him for that— for being selfish and wanting more than what he had. But Lonato gave him another chance.

Yet he couldn’t save Christophe. He couldn’t save Lonato. The new community he learned to love— to be a part of— they were gone. Dead by his own two hands. And what the goddess tried to tell him then, he wasn’t sure. He used to love her too, after all, but she suddenly felt so far away.

He loved the books Lonato gave him. The stories of knighthood and their heroism. Garreg Mach was a dream come true and he cherished his time there— at first. He would talk with his classmates of chivalry and virtue. He loved them, too.

His back turned on it all. On the Kingdom— on the stories he read countless times. On the friends he made and adored with all his heart. As he had spilled the blood of the villagers who took him at his lowest, he so spilled the blood of his allies. He didn’t love the Empire, but he stayed with them. He didn’t love the thought of treachery, but he succumbed to it. And hatred took hold of him. It was secure. His love changed with the patterns of the wind— it came and it was taken away. But the hatred stayed the same. It stayed within him and it hurt the way it was supposed to.

Was love supposed to hurt? It never hurt in his favorite tales. The heroes preached to the heavens about love— about how it completed them. Yet it left nothing but a void inside of him. Hatred was painful, as it was supposed to be, and it felt right when it ate away at the corners of his mind. Terrible, but right. Love wasn’t for something like him— love didn’t hurt the deserving.

It was a fallacy. He knew it was— love hurt the deserving all the time. It hurt Cyril. He was scared— so scared there were nights he couldn’t sleep. Where he would lay nestled in Ashe’s arms until sunrise, crying, and give every fear of his a name so Ashe could cast them all away. Cyril’s life, devoid of love, left him terrified of what would happen if love so happened to fall into his favor. Surely it would disappear as soon as it came, he thought. It made sense, really— the fear of losing what you’ve gained, of falling back into the cruelty of what used to be.

But Cyril was different. Surely he was— he had done nothing half as heinous as the crimes of Ashe himself. The pain Cyril felt was nothing short of unfair where the icy tendrils of regret rooted into Ashe’s core were years of judgement passed. He had no problem holding Cyril tightly against his chest, rocking him back and forth and pressing his lips to the other’s forehead in sweet, comforting motions. He would stop at nothing to ease his love’s pain if only for a second. Yet when it came to himself, he welcomed the ache. Encouraged the tormented thoughts to encapsulate his mind until he was dizzy. Until he couldn’t move. Days would pass and he would be none the wiser to the passage of time, trapped within the impenetrable bars of acrimony.

If it wasn’t for Cyril’s own hurt, Ashe would have ran. At least, he told himself that. He wanted to think that his selfishness alone wouldn’t chain Cyril down. That if Cyril didn’t need him, he would let the other go free. Because too often he would look at Cyril and see something else. The faces of his parents— of Lonato and Christophe and the villagers and his classmates. Of everyone he loved who was no longer there. And he couldn’t help but wonder if Cyril would fall to the same fate.

He wouldn’t be able to take it. If Cyril disappeared, then surely so would he. Every passing day added to the horror Ashe felt. Because every passing second was a moment closer to another battle. Another opportunity for Cyril to get hurt, to fall victim to Ashe’s curse and vanish from the earth forever.

It had to be that; a curse. There was something evil within Ashe, he was certain of it. Why else would such terrible things happen time and time again? Why else would happiness be ripped from him as quickly as he found it? So much of his time had been spent trying to throw the curse off balance— to put so much good into the world that the turmoil he had wrought was overwhelmed. His younger self was determined to set things right. To reverse the damage his thievery had caused. How naïve— the dreams of a boy who could still look at his hands and see freshly fallen snow.

He wasn’t sure there was hope of that anymore; of making things right. In general, really, but especially when he was so occupied wondering if Cyril was still breathing to think of anything else.

It was embarrassing how he would fall apart after every attack. How Cyril knew now to look for him before all else and kiss the tears from his face and tell him over again that he was alive. Even worse were the times there was no strife at all— when Ashe would awaken from terrible dreams with a sinking feeling and an empty space beside him on the bed. He would seek Cyril out in a scared frenzy, only realizing how pathetic he looked when Cyril held him under the eyes of onlookers who he took no notice of before.

Those moments of weakness, to Ashe, felt unforgivable. Cyril succumbed to darkness more than he did— his own fears would tear him apart every day of the week at times. And for Ashe to fall apart himself, for the chance of him to be unavailable in a time where Cyril needed him most, was something he couldn’t bear. If he so chanced to inflict Cyril with his curse of death, the least he could do was be perfect for him. But he couldn’t even do that.

Cyril didn’t believe in curses or ghosts or anything of the like. He was vocal about it, too, but not in a terrible way— not in a way that dismissed Ashe when he was in a state of panic. Only in a way that reassured him when battle drew near. Or when Ashe couldn’t keep himself from crying, from begging Cyril to turn in early for the night because he couldn’t stand to lay in bed alone. And when Ashe apologized for being ridiculous, Cyril always told him that it was all right— they were there for each other. Ashe was allowed to hurt. To be unstable. To be comforted and loved the way he himself loved Cyril.

It wasn’t something he could believe so easily. Not when being loved always ended in an abrupt and awful way. He didn’t want Cyril to see his scars— he didn’t want Cyril to see how much he hurt. Because pain brought people closer and the closer people got to Ashe, the quicker they disappeared.

There was merit, though, in the way Cyril was closer to Ashe than anyone from his present or past. How Cyril did know of all his scars and did know of all his pain and lived to kiss his wounds when they throbbed. There was merit in the way that, amidst all the pain, Cyril made his heart flutter more than anything ever had.

He made Ashe happy. Ashe wouldn’t be nearly as afraid if it wasn’t the case. Every moment spent with his love was a suture on his battered heart. A warmth that differed from the burning flames of Aillel— one that reminded him more of the crackling of a fireplace in a home. In a place he belonged. Somewhere a curse couldn’t reach him— where he was free to love and be loved and not be punished in return. He wanted nothing more than the peace he shared with Cyril— the moments they laid together and laughed over a ridiculous passage in a book or the antics of the other soldiers. When he could run his fingers through the other’s hair and whisper sweet nothings that made Cyril grumble and blush.

Happiness was a fickle thing. Something that could burn brightly one second then fizzle into despair the next. But he wanted more of those bright moments— too often had he fallen into anguish and often would he again. Yet he knew now that joy was something possible. Even if he didn’t deserve it, even if it was seldom and distant, it was possible. And despite all his self-loathing and all the pain he welcomed upon his heart, he wanted more of the joy.

Cyril did, too. And how terrible would Ashe be to deny such a wondrous man his happiness? When their joys were so often shared— when he could be the one to bring a smile to his love’s face— how could he so much as risk negating a single moment of elation for the other? It was easier to think of it that way. To think that his own bliss was not deserved by he himself, but rather by the one who loved to see him smile.

Cyril was of a similar mind; he allowed himself to live for the other and in turn, live for himself all the same. It was in the promise they made. That they would always be there for one another— always help out in times of need— but more importantly would they be there for themselves. A simple ask for help or companionship— something that came so easily to others but fell always to impossibility for the two of them— would be learned together. A promise firm in the expression of love both to each other and unto themselves. For there was hope, one day, that there would be peace. And in that peace would be the opportunity to chip away at the torment in their souls and replace it instead with solace.

The future was uncertain. If they would ever get a chance at that peace, they couldn’t be sure, and the terror that weighed heavy on Ashe’s heart was a hard one to bury. But he loved Cyril. In a time that was so tumultuous, he was sure of it.

And beyond that, he wanted to love Cyril. And he wanted Cyril to love him. Beyond all the voices that spoke of curses and death and hatred in his mind, above all his quaking fear and fleeting desires to succumb to misery and disappear, he wanted to love again.

And so, he did.


End file.
